


fever, I'm afire

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Coping, Drug Use, Gen, Grief, Hallucinations, John Copes all The Wrong Ways, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 08:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's cloudy, and slightly viscous when he touches it with the tip of his finger. The tea light flickers and he watches entranced as it bubbles and fizzes. He sucks it into his needle, and looks to Sherlock.<br/>Sherlock stares at him. "Well?"<br/>And that's how he knows this isn't his Sherlock, but it helps to have him around, and this is the easiest way to ensure that he never dissolves. This hallucination is keeping him sane, and if he has to drown in drugs to keep him, then so be it.</p><p>John copes. He's fine. He's dealing with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fever, I'm afire

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, everyone and their mother has written a post-Reich fanfic. But my muse, guys. Even as I said to it, "Series three is already here," he wouldn't relent.  
> And no, I know John Watson would never actually become a junkie, but hush and read. Hush and read.  
> Review and comment! It's appreciated!

 

_As we came close,_

_Chiron drew an arrow's notch back through the tangle_

_Of beard along his jaw to clear a space_

_For his large mouth, and to the others he said:_

_"Have you observed how that one's steps displace_

_Objects his body touches? Feet of the dead_

_Are not accustomed to behave like that.'"_

_Dante's Inferno, Canto XII_

"So. You found my hole in the wall." He chortles, as if he told a great joke. John doesn't remember when he's last heard that. He's hateful. God, he's hateful and beautiful and John- John- John-

 "You're not funny." John slurs from the couch, completely boneless and relaxed and yet so clear headed. 

 Well. Ella would have a field day at him for that, because clearly he's as far from clear headed as humanly possible. 

 He looks so at home from where he is sitting, shrugging. It's not even his flat, not anymore (but not John's either, he paid the last he'll ever pay for rent here), and he makes it seem as if he's never left. "Well. Maybe not. How does it feel?"

 John grins, but his insides churn with impending sickness and he recoils slightly. "It's… something else. Definitely. Is this how you felt?"

Sherlock grins, and it's all wrong. His teeth are too sharp and too small, and his eyes were never brown, but they are now and John- John- John- 

"No," He murmurs. "It was even better."

And that's wrong too, because he never looked at John like that when talking about his past. Ever. He looks delighted now. And it's manic. 

John sneers. "You're supposed to be dead."

He gets no response, because he's dissolved into thin air again. It's always when John tells him the utmost truth that he leaves again. The flat falls into that uncomfortable silence again. Busy wallpaper makes a flat cosier. John wants to rip it off the walls. 

John- John- John-

Good-

Goodb-

John-

* * *

Goby fish have a special relationship with snapping shrimp. The shrimp are blind, so the fish swim above them and make such a commotion with their tails if danger passes, the shrimp know to burrow back into their homes. In return, the shrimp share the home with the fish.

If the fish die, the shrimp get eaten. The shrimp don't really help matters, they're blind. 

All the fish get is a home. 

John doesn't know if he could be likened to the fish or the shrimp.

* * *

"Are you coping?" 

John coughs, a defensive move, and nods his head once. "Yeah, yeah I'm coping."

Ella frowns. He tries not to scratch; scratches anyway. She frowns deeper. He takes sick pleasure in that, even if it doesn't mean anything good. 

He registers Sherlock lying on the therapy couch (what are those called? He'll have to find out) and tries not to snap. 

"Tell her, John." His voice is drawling, his head is completely hanging off the end. His Adam's apple bobs uncomfortably with each syllable. "We're all so _worried_." 

He doesn't like this version of Sherlock, but it's the version of Sherlock he'll has, and he'll take it. 

He doesn't stop to wonder why Sherlock is growing fuzzier and fuzzier around the edges. Or why Sherlock's been appearing to him strung out.

John grits his teeth. "I'm coping." He growls, and sighs in impatience at Ella's frown that becomes a concerned furrow of brow. 

What was the _point_ of all this? God, he's starting to sound like him. He scratches again. 

John turns to look at the clock. Twenty minutes left. 

Tick tock, tick tock, and John stares out the window. After nineteen minutes and thirty seconds have passed, he stands up and leaves without saying goodbye. 

Sherlock isn't in the room when he reaches the door. 

* * *

He goes to the funeral, but doesn't talk to anyone. Doesn't dare look at Molly's tear streaked face in case he screams _he never liked you, you sentimental girl! He just used you!_ He can't understand why she cries even harder after catching his eye. 

He accepts Lestrade's sympathetic pat on the back. 

He hugs Mrs Hudson around the shoulders and walks out with her. 

He restrains himself from punching Mycroft in the face, but only because Mummy Holmes is there. 

He doesn't restrain himself from scoffing disgustedly when Mycroft tries to approach him. Mummy Holmes be damned.

* * *

He doesn't have to do anything to the flat. Cleaners come by, waving government papers that he doesn't even care about, and clean out the room. 

John watches with detached eyes as bed sheets and posters and clothes and shoes go out the door, and hoards the precious three items that he feels belong to him, Mycroft be damned. 

He goes into the sterile room, that doesn't smell of Sherlock anymore (isn't bleach hateful) and looks around. As bare as a baby's bottom. 

He places the violin case lovingly on the stripped bed, and places the skull right next to it. 

The dagger with the ivory and pearl hilt remains stabbed into the mantlepiece, sans papers.

It takes a full month, but everything goes. The microscope and science equipment is relegated to a sixth form college in Surrey, near Mrs Hudson's sister.

He hoovers the rugs, shreds the case files that are strewn around, wrinkles his nose at the dust, and washes out days old tea out of stained (and mouldy, some of them) mugs. 

It's as he's mopping the hardwood that the mop catches on a loose board he's never noticed before moving the rug. The board is broken in the corner, and lifts easily when John yanks the mop away. 

Inside is a box. A box that looks like the kind you'd make during summer camp, all precut sides drilled together shabbily with screws and painted a forest green. 

_To Sherlock_ is painted in a child's handwriting. 

In the end, it only takes a split second decision to open the box, and another ten days to inspect the insides… _thoroughly_.

* * *

He's wearing a button up to a pub, which is bloody ridiculous, but the crook of his elbow. Lestrade will understand, and if he doesn't, John can act like it's a mourning ritual. Because it is. He meets Lestrade at the pub near the station and Sherlock grins. 

"He's been demoted. New girlfriend left, shaving cream behind the ear. Hasn't been sleeping, look at the bags under his eyes and the strain in his brow. Hangover two nights ago. Wife's refusing to send the kids up this weekend." He hisses, even though John is the only one who can hear. 

They make their way to the bar, and get the housebrew. 

"So," Lestrade begins, and clears his throat. "How are you holding up?"

John snorts, and it's all the answer Lestrade is going to get. 

Lestrade clears his throat again. Drums his fingers on the bar nervously. Licks his lips. "John, I'm sor-"

"Don't." John can't hear that. He knows what Lestrade did, how involved he was. How, in the end, when his hour was nigh, he doubted the brilliance Sherlock Holmes showed merely by breathing and was enough of a cause in Sherlock's nonsensical suicide that John can't. 

Lestrade gulps down a third of his beer and stares John down. "Mycroft called."

Shit. "Did he?" He asks nonchalantly. He's staring at a dozing Sherlock on the bar, sweaty from the atmosphere and flushed. A drop of swear pools in the hollow of his throat and John licks his lips. 

"He seems to be under the impression you're… coping in dangerous ways." Lestrade places the glass where Sherlock's forehead was. John blinks. 

"Is he?" He replies dazedly. 

Lestrade nods, then frowns. "Are you?"

John leaves.

He leaves, because damn Mycroft for interfering when John didn't even know Mycroft knew. 

Damn his omnipotence. 

Damn Mycroft and his- his-

John can't breathe. He rests his head against the dingy brick of the alley, and watches in his peripheral vision as Sherlock pops up his collar to look cool. 

"Can you believe my brother?" He asks easily, composed as if he wasn't flushed and sweaty five seconds ago. 

He wasn't, and that makes John breathe harder, but less evenly. He's hyperventilating. 

John- John- Good- John-

* * *

Ridiculous of him to assume that Sherlock Vernet Holmes ever went to summer camp. He obviously kept it as a gift. 

That makes less sense to John when he discovers the box, because Sherlock isn't like that. That isn't something he'd do, keep a childhood relic when the lid is coming off its hinges, the paint is scratched, and the box itself is dented. 

Ah. 

Then he laughs, because he can't help himself. Because this, this is something Sherlock would do. Morbid irony until the end.  

He closes the box and put it on the coffee table. And doesn't- _doesn't_ open it. 

* * *

He helps Mrs Hudson replace the wallpaper, and cover the gunshot gore on the wall. Mrs Hudson buys a new table because the old one is charred in places by a Bunsen burner and scratched, but puts it in the basement flat- _just until you move out, dear_ because they've already settled that. 

He stares at the box. Mrs Hudson asks what is in it, but John doesn't answer. 

Sherlock is there, sitting on his chair, glaring in that way of his at the box. He's hallucinating. Sherlock looks up at him, and smiles that brilliant smile of his.

John- John- John-

* * *

He opens his laptop. 

_Negative effects: constricting passage of blood to heart under extreme heart rate increase. Heart attack._

_Restrict blood flow to brain. Stroke. Seizures. Violent behaviour._

_Ulcers in gastrointestinal tract. Preforation of stomach and intestines._

_Rhabdomyolysis._

_Delayed or impaired ejaculation, although some men claim works as aphrodisiac._

_No hallucinations. And yet…_

"Hello, John."

"You're supposed to be dead." John says, breathlessly, and Sherlock shrugs and leaves in the blink of an eye.

* * *

"Ah, John." Mycroft sounds surprised to see him, as if John waking up and going downstairs to his kitchen is something that is a shocking thing. 

Funny how Mycroft could make him feel like he's doing something wrong in his own home.

Well. _Harry's_ home.  

"What do you want Mycroft?" He asks, going to prepare a cuppa. He's wearing a shirt today to bed. Mycroft notices. John knows he does. 

It's long sleeved. And black. 

The crook of his elbow is inflamed, after all. Have to hide that from the office. What would his patients say?

It's only after his tea is steeped and milked he realises he's thought of returning to work. 

Mycroft is boring holes into his back. When John turns around, he tries not to squirm. After all, it's Mycroft that sat and waited for John to wake up.

Creep.

"Ask about the diet," Sherlock asks from where he's perched on the fridge. He's all angles and sharp edges from his position, arms bracketing his folded legs and balancing on the balls of his feet. He looks like a pale hawk about to take flight. 

"How's the diet?" John asks, and expects Sherlock to laugh. He's gone. 

Mycroft frowns. If looks could kill, John would be dead by now. "Where is it?"

John smiles evenly. "Where's what, Mycroft?"

There's a sharp tap from the umbrella. "The _drugs_ , John. Where are the _drugs_?"

John sits, makes himself comfortable and tries not to scratch. "Lestrade already has gone through the old flat, Mycroft, several times over the past years. If the drugs were in that house, then-"

"John." Mycroft snaps, fury boiling in his eyes. 

John bares his teeth. Defensive. Tedious. He blinks and almost smiles. He's starting to sound like him. Hilarious. "I'm fine, Mycroft."

"No you're not. John, does your therapist know? Surely she can-"

John cuts him off. He sounds so confused, so dubious, like he doesn't believe therapists can actually help anything. "Mycroft, I'm fine."

"Where are they?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Mycroft twirls his brolly. John scratches, but mercifully, it's only his ear. 

John stands and walks out, grabbing his coat. Before he goes, he makes sure to slam the door. 

It's only as he walks out that he realises he's in his boxers and a long sleeved shirt, walking barefoot. 

He's _fine_.

* * *

"You should've told her."

"Shut up." John growls, staring at the tub of yoghurt in his hands. A little girl stares at him. The mother putters around him, avoiding him like the plague. "This whole mess could've been avoided had not you died."

"You're shaking, John."

He is, but it's not the intermittent tremor of before, all those years ago. He's actually shaking like a leaf, bodily. "If I'm shaking, it's your fault."

"How?" Sherlock sounds amused from where he's folded up like a child inside his trolley. 

Good- Good- Good-

"It just is, damn it!" He throws the yoghurt at Sherlock's head, but he's already gone and the yoghurt spills onto the floor of Tesco. 

The other shoppers are actively staring. One has a camera phone. It's recording. The girl is smiling as she holds it up. 

_Bachelor John Watson Finally Goes Insane After Death of Friend and Flatmate, Sherlock Holmes, Throws Tesco Yoghurt_

He can imagine it now. Oh god. 

He leaves the aisle laughing hysterically to himself, trying not to scratch and failing. 

* * *

"John!" 

Lestrade's gravelly voice is relieved. The phone's white noise static becomes awkward, so John says, "Yeah?"

Gruff. Brusque. Tough luck on Greg. 

"I'm worried, mate! You've not been responding. Where are you?"

John looks around at his new flat. It's tiny. And Harry called it eccentric as if the New Age wallpaper and the stainless steel everything in the kitchen were okay for a near forty two year old man to co-own. John eyes the To Sherlock box on his still bare bed. "Shoreditch."

Lestrade's choke is covered up quickly by a cough. "What the hell? Shoreditch? Why there?"

John shrugs. Lestrade won't see it, but Sherlock does. He's still crouching. John wonders why. "My sister lives here. After the divorce, she wanted somewhere she called 'vibrant and fun,' but really translates to a lot of bars. When I mentioned moving out, she asked for me to live here while her new real estate girlfriend looked for a new place for me."

He's rambling. The white noise static is deafening. Almost makes the roar in his ears drown out. 

"Oh." Lestrade says. John grits his teeth. "Listen, I called because I was wondering if you wanted to go for pints?"

He should. 

"You should," Sherlock says. He's sprawled on John's borrowed bed, looking at the contents of the box.

"Yeah. Yeah, sure why not. When?"

"Anytime, man. There's this pub close to the station." Lestrade sounds relieved. 

* * *

The box comes with the rocks, the spoon, the needle (which John sets apart and takes out his own) and baking soda. 

There's a tea light in one of the cabinets. And matches.

It's like poetry, going through the motions. 

Makes everything

Stop. 

John- John- John-

* * *

He meets a dealer called Axel, and buys more off him. 

Axel has a friend called Aurel, and she's gorgeous.

There's a club, not a pub or a bar, or a restaurant. He feels like the oldest one there knocking back drink after drink, and then Aurel sits with him as he makes himself comfortable.

More of her group comes. 

There's a man named Simon, who, after he melts the rocks with the baking soda, puts the spoon into his mouth and performs a perfunctory blowjob on the silverware. 

John licks his lips. 

Cocaine, it seems, is an aphrodisiac.

* * *

"I got a call from a Mr Holmes. John, we need to talk about this."

Ella, John concludes, can fuck off. 

* * *

"Hey, Mrs Hudson."

"John, dear! My God, what happened?"

"Got punched by Harry. Thrown out. Can I stay?"

"I've rented out 221B, but I've got a spare room. You can stay until you find a new place. You poor thing."

He doesn't mention the new box in his bag. He smiles gratefully.

Mrs Hudson, John concludes, is a saint.

* * *

Lestrade is at the Shoreditch flat. Mycroft called him.

Drugs bust. 

John smiles. He ran out of cocaine days ago. The box is empty. 

Fate, John concludes, adores him.

Lestrade asks why he kept it. John shrugs. "Childhood relic, I suppose."

He throws the box away and goes online.

* * *

Sherlock sits at the breakfast table, silent support and invisible help as his sister cuts into him. 

"How the hell could you be so _stupid_ , John? And I have to hear about it from a posh git that sounds like he has a stick up his arse!"

This makes Sherlock laugh. 

Harry punches him. "Get out of my house. Pack and leave, and get some fucking _help_."

Harriet, John concludes, is a hypocrite.

* * *

"Family sucks, man."

Axel learned about John's almost-disownment. 

He doesn't sell John any more cocaine. In fact, no one in a twenty block radius from John's new new flat will sell him so much as cigarettes. 

Damn Mycroft.

John- John- John-

* * *

Lestrade stops by. 

"Have you spoken to him?" He asks. 

John grins. "Plenty of times. In my head. He never really left. And now? Well, now, it's all peachy keen."

Lestrade stays and cleans up the mess John made. Broken plates get binned, he hoovers, he dusts, he throws papers away, and he washes old mugs of tea. 

John thinks his life is all one big fucking parallel universe meshed together.

He's chain smoking now, but at least he's off the cocaine. 

* * *

He travels to Surrey with Mrs Hudson to visit her sister, because Mrs Hudson recently strained her hip and needs help moving around. 

If she's mentioned John's new scars and the bruised skin of his elbows, she hasn't said anything. 

Bless her heart. 

* * *

Surrey has a drug dealer named Telperion, but that's not his real name. John thinks it sounds like the name of a company. Telperion grins and shrugs. 

"I work as a telemarketer for a company during the day, funny you should guess."

"It's not a guess. Observed the details, good work, John." Sherlock breathes. 

John grins. 

He buys the cocaine of Tel, the telemarketing drug dealer.

* * *

The cocaine off Telperion, the telemarketer, is like nothing John has ever taken. 

  
_God_ but that's a rush. 

Except oh god no wait- 

Shit-

Wait- 

Good- John- Good-

Wait-

John- John- John- 

"Lestrade? Lestrade, shit, I made a mistake. Send someone. Now."

John- John- John- 

Good-

Good-

_Goodbye, John._

Goodbye-

John-

John- John- John-

"John? _John_! Fuck! Okay, hold on! Jesus! Jesus fuck! Stay alive, John Watson! _Fuck_!"

* * *

 

He's on morphine. He recognises the grogginess from his own batch. 

Groaning, he opens his eyes. 

Well.

"You're supposed to be dead."

Sherlock smiles, but it's strained. He looks… emaciated. Dead on his feet. "Thank god," he breathes. 

John furrows his brow. "You're not supposed to be here. That's cocaine, not morphine."

He's never hallucinated on morphine. Ever. 

Sherlock's eyes are bright with unshed tears. "Mycroft phoned me. God- John. Why?"

"You're supposed to be dead."

It doesn't work, only makes those unshed tears fall. John sighs. Shrugs. "I'm coping. You know that. You've been with me since the start. It was a way of you staying."

Sherlock is not crouching, and he's not sprawled, and his eyes aren't brown. He's clutching John's hand so hard bone grinds against bone. "I'm so sorry. So sorry. John, I'm so sorry."

John feels disgusted and angry and sad and he wants to suddenly sleep for a very long time. 

So he does. 

* * *

"I see you're on patches. Good. That's good." 

"Fuck off, Mycroft." 

"John, you understand that everything I tried to do was to help you?"

"Where's Sherlock, Mycroft?"

"In 221B. The other family that moved in last year, they're gone. He's waiting for you."

"You can see yourself out."

* * *

Lestrade visits. 

Mycroft appears before John wakes up.

Mrs Hudson brings scones. 

Harriet calls even less now, but at least she still calls on his birthday.

Sherlock- 

Sherlock is alive. 

The patches seem to work.

John still scratches.

* * *

"Will you come back?"

John looks at him. "It's been three months since my overdose Sherlock. I thought you'd stop asking."

Sherlock grimaces. "It's not the same without you."

"Who gave you the box? When you were a kid? The box? Who gave it to you?"

Sherlock furrows his brow, frowns at him. He sighs. "He was about seven. I was five. Our mothers were close. His name was Victor."

John nods. Flexes his hands and tries not to scratch. 

He scratches anyway, watching Sherlock watch the motion. "I can't go back, Sherlock."

"Ever?"

John stares. 

His tea goes cold. 

* * *

_Closed door murder, fourth floor, come? SH_

John sighs. 

His tea gets cold. 

He opens his door.

And doesn't scratch.


End file.
